DISTILLERY BILL. (Hansard, 3 February 1812)

The Earl of Lauderdale
said, he did not rise to oppose the Bill, but he thought it incumbent on him to state his reasons for not doing so. He had on former occasions maintained, and still maintained the principle, that it was impolitic to stop the distillation from grain, because such a measure tended to the discouragement of the agriculture of the country, and he was convinced that to keep up the distillation from grain was the best method of insuring a supply of food for a year of scarcity, when it should become absolutely necessary to prevent the consumption of grain in the distilleries. It was very questionable, whether the produce of the late harvest had been so deficient as had been stated; but under the circumstances in which we were placed, and when scenes were exhibited in the country which had never before been seen in it, he thought it would be better to lean to the safe side, and not to run the risk of increasing any scarcity that already existed. It was upon this ground, therefore, that he did not oppose the Bill; the measure was, however, very objectionable in another point of view. His Majesty's ministers having the means of ascertaining the deficiency in the produce of the late harvest, ought undoubtedly to have called parliament together for the purpose of taking the earliest possible steps to counteract the evil, or if there was any inconvenience in assembling parliament, they ought to have acted upon their responsibility in stopping the distilleries, and come to parliament for an indemnity. As it was, a quantity of spirits had already been distilled from grain, sufficient, in many parts of the country, for the consumption of the year, and the present measure could only apply to the quantity distilled for the succeeding year. He thought it right to say a few words before he sat down upon the observations which had been made upon the rejection of a similar measure by the House last session, which had been brought up from the Commons. Nothing could be more unfounded than those observations, as there was not at that period any scarcity to justify suspending the distillation from grain, and therefore the House acted perfectly right in rejecting the Bill.

§ Earl Bathurst
said that no time bad been lost in bringing forward the present measure. It was always difficult, in the early part of the season, to ascertain the extent of any deficiency in the produce of the harvest. The best criterion was the prices; and when it was found that the harvest had turned out so much more unproductive than general report had at first assumed, a decision was taken to stop the distillation from grain; and subsequent to that decision, no prorogation of parliament took place. As to the executive government taking upon itself to issue an order to stop the distilleries, he thought it an unjustifiable measure, at least one that could only be justified by the greatest possible necessity, and certainly a measure highly unconstitutional.

§ Lord Grenville
entirely agreed with his noble friend who had just sat down, that it would have been highly unconstitutional for the executive government to have taken upon itself to have issued an order to stop the distilleries, and that it was a measure which could only be justified by extreme necessity. His Majesty's ministers, however, had it in their power to summon parliament to meet in fourteen days, and therefore they had the means of bringing the subject earlier into discussion. He regretted, however, to observe, that the unconstitutional mode of petitioning the executive government instead of the parliament, was fast gaining ground among the people. Instead of waiting to petition parliament, petitions were addressed to the executive government, for them to take steps to stop the distillation from grain, and even the citizens of London, meeting in the very metropolis where the parliament assembles, had adopted this mode of petitioning the executive government. With respect to the Bill before the House, he was inimical to the principle of stopping the distillation from grain, nor could be even go so far as his noble friend near him, in considering it as a principle, that the suspension of the distillation from grain ought to be resorted to in a year of scarcity, because he thought that even setting op that principle tended to discourage the agriculture of the country. Under the present circumstances, however, of the country, he was not disposed to press the reluctance which he felt to agree to a measure of this nature. He was not so much influenced to this conduct by the internal state of the country—a state which, in one populous part of it, 492 was most undoubtedly disgraceful to ministers. Discontents had been suffered to grow into riot and tumult, and threatened to increase to actual rebellion, without any steps being taken by government to repress these disorders, and it certainly reflected no credit upon parliament that it had been sitting so long without taking any notice of these excesses. He was not, however, so much influenced by these circumstances in opposing the present Bill, as by the state of our foreign commerce. Cut off from all supplies from the continent of Europe, and he feared also from America; at war nearly with all Europe, and the war likely, he feared, to be extended to the most calamitous quarter for this country, namely America, it was the consideration that we could not under these circumstances obtain supplies through the means of our foreign commerce, that chiefly induced him not to press his reluctance to the present measure.

The Earl of Lauderdale
observed, that ministers bad resorted to a more unconstitutional mode than the one he had pointed out, instating to the distillers, that the distillation from grain would be stopped, and thereby intimating that the voice of parliament went for nothing, and that the decision of the executive government was every thing.

§ Earl Bathurst
said, that when the petitions came before the executive government, a decision was taken upon them, and it was intimated to the parties interested, that a proposition would be made to parliament to suspend the distillation from grain, leaving them to pursue their own course. Was there any thing unconstitutional in this?